Ophelia
by LovelyPrecedent
Summary: A one shot in which Tifa is severely depressed and visits the marshes where a water demon is rumored to dwell in. This is a strange one.


Tifa knew it was real. Medicine at its stage refused to acknowledge that clinical melancholy was a valid ailment. The pain was intangible, invisible, but it gnawed at her soul every waking second. She understood why people dubbed it as being bitten by the black dog.

So it made perfect sense for her to spend her twilights sitting on the muddy banks of the marshes. Even though her maids and mother insisted that it made her look disturbed and unmarriageable. Like she even had the heart to think about marriage these days.

Everything about the stinky bog resonated with her inner turmoil; the disjointed reeds that blew haphazardly in the wind, the ominous black of the water, and the dark trees on the horizon. It was an ecosystem permeated with gloom and lingering emptiness that she drew solace in, and where she felt free to cry for as long as she damn well pleased.

Apparently a water demon had been living in its miserable depths for as long as local legend and it was accepted as an unquestionable truth – another reason why her acquaintances hated her going to the swamp. Not that she had seen it for the last few months of visiting, and eventually she concluded that it was a tale recited to children to discourage them from drowning in the marshes.

Then one day she did see it, or rather him. It happened when that lone duck that paddled in circles every evening was yanked savagely under the water. The unusual sight in the otherwise monotonous environment made Tifa stand up and approach the water's edge. Her feet sunk into the slime but she didn't care.

A huge wad of shining silver algae was floating in the area where the duck had been. A water goblin would have long fur or a mane, Tifa reasoned. To her surprised the algae rose upwards, and a man's face and shoulders, as it was an undeniably male looking face emerged from the depths. His complexion was pale as moonlight, which fit the goblin archetype, but his features were ethereal and symmetrically perfect. What need would a goblin have to be so beautiful looking? Shining jade eyes bore into hers, and she felt like quite the prey under his fixated glare.

"You're beauty is wasted, just like they say mine is," Tifa muttered in wonder. Astoundingly the monster appeared to comprehend her, for he lowered his head and smirked menacingly. A pale white hand appeared from under the dark water and beckoned her towards him. Death was flirting with her, though how could he not when she herself played with the idea every single day?

She shook her tear stricken face; the monster turned his lips down in mock sadness. Mocking it was, for it clearly was aware of her pathetic state, and who knows how many times it had seen her carrying on with her weeping at the swamp.

She dug her feet further into the mud.

"No!" she shrieked, more to herself than to him. Still in seduction mode, the predator lowered himself so that his eyes only were above the water. The perfect face moved seamlessly towards her without a sound or ripple. She couldn't tell if it was an alligator or a man. He calmly vanished into the depths.

A freakishly long white arm burst from the edge and gripped her ankle yanking her hard onto her back. She screamed bloody murder knowing no one would hear. She didn't expect the man's limbs to be that long. She resisted with all her might as it tried to drag her into the water, so hard that she heard her ankle pop. She turned to her side and hugged a black rock that was conveniently there with all her strength. Her struggling was so strong that the entire body of the monster heaved itself up onto the slimy bank. With her other foot she kicked violently at its head. Eventually the grip on her ankle weakened. The terrifying man started wheezing a horrible rattling sound. He used both hands to clutch his neck instead. Tifa realized he probably had gills. She stood up in pain and leered down at his helplessness.

Defeated, he sunk back to his lonesome abode.

Tifa relished the post trauma euphoria coursing through her veins. It lasted for a minute until the relentless sadness returned. She sighed and clutched her precious jade pendant. It was the very last gift her father gave before her beloved childhood friend accidentally ran him through with his sword.

"We are all mad here," she grumbled and limped back to her mother's manor. She did not notice the flimsy chain breaking and the pendant dropping into the mud.

Melancholy is a cruel mistress, and Tifa found herself back at the swamp even after time healed her ankle and she had been scolded to the moon and back. Her goblin friend hadn't appeared for the last couple of times back here. A new duck had claimed the pond as its own every dusk.

What was that long thread attached to its leg though? Tifa cautiously approached the edge. A long silver chain was stuck to the quacking duck's foot and at the end a unique jade pendant. Tifa fumbled at her bare neck and panicked. How did it get there? She would need to retrieve it at all costs, for her father's memory, for herself.

A sense of firm resolve overtook her senses, yes she would retrieve that necklace even though it would risk her life.

She kicked off her shoes. Trembling, she took one tentative step into the black water. It sank a foot into the ponds' grime. She looked nervously at the water for a sign of the monster. Nothing. She stepped in with her other foot and repeated her safety check. At any moment she would need to be ready to flee.

When no one harassed her, she felt confident to take a few more steps forward. The duck was only now ten feet away. Her next step resulted in her plunging under water briefly in an unanticipated drop off. She gasped at the water's very unpleasant coldness, but continued paddling towards it. The stupid duck was swimming further to the swamp's centre. She made a frantic swipe at the jade pendant. To her relief the chain broke off the duck's foot.

She gazed at the imposing reeds in front of her and the thick wad of silver contrasting against the green stalks. Her heart stopped.

Without a second to breathe in fully she was yanked by both ankles and felt herself being dragged to the floor of the bog. Survival instinct kicked into gear and she made sure to hold her remaining breath instead of panicking. The water gurgled in her ears and she was too frightened to see the murky depths themselves. Strong arms wrapped around her back and a body pushed hard against hers in a bone tight embrace. It was literally trying to squeeze the last breathe out of her.

As a human she could only endure so much. Thirty dreadful seconds passed before she succumbed to inevitable death, no, to her it would welcome eternal reprieve and oblivion from this hell of her life so far. Her chest reflexed and compelled her mouth to snap open and inhale water. Excruciating pain exploded in her chest so much that her eyes snapped open too and her last sight was the blurry white and sharp green. Then the pain subsided into nothingness.

To her disappointment her consciousness didn't. The battle was still on. Warm lips met her own in her dazed state and a tongue pushed through, demanding entry into her mouth. Thoroughly humiliating as this was, she couldn't stop herself from letting him because there were _air_ in his mouth. She surrendered to the deep kiss, deciding to write it off as a survival tactic. She breathed deeply in and out of his own air supply. When she felt replenished enough she would claw him and make her way to the top again.

The moment came. She drew in her last breathe before the finale of tearing viciously at his bare chest. Red tendrils seeped out of the white and she kicked upwards and away. He let her go rather easily which was wonderful.

Kicking upwards was so easy when escaping from imminent death. Why she was fighting for her life after initially regretting her survival was beyond her. Perhaps her heart wanted to live and hope after all. Her now lunatic childhood friend once ranted about how stubborn the innate human will towards self interest and survival was. The sun's last ray penetrated through the black currents, she looked forward to feeling it from the comfort of the land, where she belonged.

The moment her head burst above the water she knew something was terribly wrong. When she tried to draw air there was a choking feeling, like a cotton rag had been stuffed down her entire throat, and also her mouth and nose. She concluded this must be water that needs to be retched out. She swam swiftly to the bog's bank where she first came from. That gaudy pendant was now strewn ten feet away on the _land_. Why die for it?

She used her arms to yank her upper body onto the land, but her body was like dead weight lead, even though her legs were kicking powerfully in the water. In confusion she willed her legs to lunge out of the water but moved only an inch forward.

Something was so wrong. It was like a nightmare where someone was chasing her and she couldn't run forward, like one was moving through quicksand instead. The choking feeling was tormenting. She tried to retch through the cotton feeling in her throat and a rattling noise came out. Survival instinct kicked again and she threw her head beneath the water.

Much better. She could see crystal clear into the depths. Where the reeds were disoriented and uneven on the surface, they swayed in even motion under the water, like an ocean lullaby. Serpents and fishes weaved in and around them, so now the unknown of what lurked in the black water didn't scare her. She was part of their environment now.

She ought to be feeling dismay and despair at her hideous new fate, she really should. The feeling of dismay never came, for if the truth be told, she had already been feeling despair and sadness for a very long time. This was not that new, in fact if she was honest the only thing that felt vastly different was her external surroundings.

Her demonic playmate approached her as she returned to the bog's centre in resignation. The triumphant grin on his face made her want to claw at his chest again.

Now at face level and very close to her she could accurately deduce that he really was beautiful. After all she had nothing to lose and all the time in the world. Perhaps he could take time to show her around this underwater ecosystem and alleviate her boredom, may be even distract her from her melancholy sometimes.

Her mouthed four words at her and from his mouth burst bubbles of victorious laughter. Laughter that Tifa knew would never break the surface and be heard by the likes of anyone. That didn't mean it wasn't real. She understood it perfectly. It was just like her depression.

The maids found the jade pendant half sunken in the mud. They saw the deep muddied footprints leading to the water and the five fingered scratches at the water's edge. They rightly concluded the worst. Tifa had succumbed to her melancholic madness and drowned herself. Whether it was grief of her father's tragic death, pain of seeing her childhood friend descend into madness, or the devastation of being left a spinster, they would never know. Knowing she would never get a proper burial, they threw the pendant back to the black water so it could meet with her underwater grave.


End file.
